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Moral Judjement
Moral Judjement
Summary
Traditional theories of moral psychology emphasize
reasoning and higher cognition, while more recent
work emphasizes the role of emotion. The present
fMRI data support a theory of moral judgment according to which both cognitive and emotional processes play crucial and sometimes mutually competitive roles. The present results indicate that brain
regions associated with abstract reasoning and cognitive control (including dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
and anterior cingulate cortex) are recruited to resolve
difficult personal moral dilemmas in which utilitarian
values require personal moral violations, violations
that have previously been associated with increased
activity in emotion-related brain regions. Several regions of frontal and parietal cortex predict intertrial
differences in moral judgment behavior, exhibiting
greater activity for utilitarian judgments. We speculate
that the controversy surrounding utilitarian moral philosophy reflects an underlying tension between competing subsystems in the brain.
Introduction
For decades, moral psychology was dominated by developmental theories that emphasized the role of reasoning and higher cognition in the moral judgment of
mature adults (Kohlberg, 1969). A more recent trend
emphasizes the role of intuitive and emotional processes in human decision making (Damasio, 1994) and
sociality (Bargh and Chartrand, 1999; Devine, 1989), a
shift in perspective that has profoundly influenced recent work in moral psychology (Haidt, 2001; Rozin et
al., 1999). Our previous work suggests a synthesis of
these two perspectives (Greene and Haidt, 2002; Greene
et al., 2001). We have argued that some moral judgments, which we call personal, are driven largely by
social-emotional responses while other moral judgments, which we call impersonal, are driven less by
social-emotional responses and more by cognitive
processes. (As discussed below, the term cognitive
has two distinct uses, referring in some cases to information processing in general while at other times referring to a class of processes that contrast with affective
*Correspondence: jdgreene@princeton.edu
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Table 1. Brain Regions Exhibiting Differential Activity for Personal versus Impersonal Moral Judgment
Regions
Personal Impersonal
Medial prefrontal cortex
Posterior cingulate/precuneus
Putamena, caudate nucleus a,
Middle temporal gyrusa,
Amygdalaa
Mid cingulate
Middle temporal gyrus
Amygdala
Anterior cingulate
Superior temporal sulcus
Lingual gyrus
Impersonal Personal
Inferior parietal lobe
Inferior frontal gyrus
Posterior cingulate
Middle frontal gyrus
Middle temporal gyrus
Inferior temporal gyrus
Right/Left
Brodmanns Area
Max t Score
(df 40)
Cluster Size
(Voxels)
Talairach Coordinates
(x, y, z)
R/L
R/L
L
9/10
31
N/A, 21
10.3
10.01
7.59
513
275
320
R/L
R
R
R/L
R
L
R
24
21
N/A
24
39
39
19
6.17
5.96
5.82
5.47
5.11
5.09
4.88
17
109
44
27
233
211
39
0, 54, 19
4, 50, 36
24, 14, 9
2, 7, 8
1, 18, 8
53, 7, 13
26, 8, 15
0, 20, 36
49, 4, 13
25, 4, 13
2, 22, 16
46, 49, 19
45, 58, 17
21, 65, 5
R
L
R
L
R/L
R
R
L
40
40
44
44
23/31
46
21
37
11.44
10.02
6.52
6.48
6.09
5.97
5.32
4.42
505
386
81
77
20
101
23
15
25, 64, 35
31, 61, 36
43, 7, 25
48, 6, 26
4, 31, 29
39, 28, 25
43, 49, 5
40, 57, 5
moral dilemmas, which previously were not distinguished from difficult personal moral dilemmas) engage
the previously identified brain regions associated with
emotion and social cognition. As predicted, we found
that each of the three brain regions previously exhibiting
greater activity for personal, as compared to impersonal,
moral judgment (medial prefrontal cortex, BA 9/10; posterior cingulate/precuneus, BA 31/7; and bilateral superior temporal sulcus (STS)/inferior parietal lobe, BA 39)
also exhibited above-baseline activity for difficult personal moral judgments in the current study (p 0.05,
cluster size 8 voxels). We note that this baseline comparison is a particularly strong test of the relevant regions engagement in our task because these regions
are most often found to exhibit decreased neural activity
relative to fixation baseline in other studies (Gusnard
and Raichle, 2001).
To test the hypothesis that difficult, as compared to
easy, personal moral dilemmas also engage brain areas
associated with abstract reasoning, cognitive conflict,
and cognitive control, we directly compared the neural
activity associated with difficult and easy personal moral
dilemmas. More specifically, we divided personal moral
judgment trials into three categories based on individually normalized reaction time (see Experimental Procedures) and compared the neural activity associated with
the most difficult trials (upper third/high-RT) to the easiest trials (lower third/low-RT). Mean RT for high- and
low-RT trials were 8.38 and 2.83 s, respectively. Note
that the same number of time points was compared for
each condition (see Experimental Procedures).
As predicted, we found that difficult, as compared
to easy, personal moral dilemmas involved increased
activity bilaterally in both the anterior DLPFC (BA 10/46)
Table 2. Brain Regions Exhibiting Differential Activity for Difficult versus Easy Personal Moral Judgment
Regions
Difficult Easy
Anterior cingulate a
Middle frontal gyrus a
Middle frontal gyrus a
Anterior insula a/inferior frontal gyrus
Posterior cingulate a
Precuneus a
Inferior parietal lobe
Inferior parietal lobe
Anterior insula
Easy Difficult
Cuneus
Middle temporal gyrus
Middle temporal gyrus a
Superior temporal sulcus a
Superior temporal gyrus
Precentral gyrus
Red nucleus
Caudate nucleus
Inferior frontal gyrus
Max t Score
(df 39)
Cluster Size
(Voxels)
Talairach Coordinates
(x, y, z)
32
10/46
10
N/A, 47
23/31
7/31
40/39
40/39
N/A
8.82
443
7.22
213
7.15
380
6.72
5.67
4.4
156
40
9
0, 33, 25
28, 49, 7
32, 47, 11
32, 17, 2
1, 27, 27
0, 69, 37
46, 54, 35
42, 59, 35
37, 14, 0
17/18/19
21
21
21/22
22
4
N/A
N/A
44
8.9
6.99
6.31
1314
87
299
6.22
5.13
4.92
4.55
4.15
67
18
49
14
8
Right/Left
Brodmanns Area
R/L
L
R
R
R/L
R/L
R
L
L
R/L
R
L
L
R
L
L
L
L
1, 75, 8
50, 6, 7
55, 6, 7
58, 47, 8
46, 36, 8
52, 9, 30
4, 23, 1
3, 4, 8
49, 5, 19
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tent with our hypothesis concerning cognitive processes. Activity in these regions has regularly been observed together with that of the DLPFC in tasks that
engage working memory and other characteristically
cognitive processes (Wager and Smith, 2003). Second,
we observed the same effect in an anterior region of the
posterior cingulate (BA 23/31). In the replication of our
previous results (Table 1), this area exhibited relatively
greater activation for impersonal, as compared to personal, moral judgment. Thus, the activity in this region
appears once again to follow the cognitive pattern
observed in the DLPFC and inferior parietal lobes, despite the fact that this region lies in the posterior cingu-
Table 3. Brain Regions Exhibiting Differential Activity for Utilitarian versus Nonutilitarian Personal Moral Judgment within Regions Exhibiting
Differential Activity for Difficult versus Easy Personal Moral Judgment
Regions
Utilitarian Nonutilitarian
Posterior cingulate
Superior/middle frontal gyrus
Precuneus
Inferior parietal lobe
Lingual gyrus
Right/Left
Brodmanns Area
Max t Score
(df 38)
Cluster Size
(Voxels)
A Priori ROI
Size (Voxels)
Talairach Coordinates
(x, y, z)
R/L
L
R
L
R
R
R/L
23/31
10
10
7
7
40
18
3.34
3.32
2.76
3.19
2.11
3.01
2.57
110
57
62
11
12
40
15
380a
443a
213a
380a
380a
156
1314
0, 31, 32
22, 48, 8
28, 49, 6
14, 67, 33
7, 68, 42
36, 44, 36
1, 67, 6
Voxelwise significance threshold p 0.05, within a priori ROI, min cluster size 8 voxels.
a
Includes multiple foci of activation.
Table 4. Brain Regions Exhibiting Differential Activity for Utilitarian versus Nonutilitarian Personal Moral Judgment
Regions
Right/Left
Brodmanns Area
Max t Score
(df 38)
Cluster Size
(Voxels)
Talairach Coordinates
(x, y, z)
Utilitarian Nonutilitarian
Inferior temporal gyrus
Middle temporal gyrus
Superior frontal gyrus
Posterior cingulate
Inferior parietal lobe
Superior temporal gyrus
L
R
R
L/R
L
R
19
21
10
23/31
40
22/42
3.93
3.65
3.40
3.4
3.4
3.34
68
14
8
40
21
9
51, 69, 1
54, 57, 8
16, 56, 12
5, 30, 32
38, 45, 25
64, 31, 8
late, a region previously associated with emotion (Maddock, 1999). (See also the discussion of analysis 2
below.) The remaining region exhibiting this effect, the
anterior insula, is also associated with emotion and,
more specifically, with disgust (Calder et al., 2001). Its
activity has also been associated with risky decision
making in a gambling task (Paulus et al., 2003) and with
a tendency to reject unfair offers in the ultimatum game
(Sanfey et al., 2003). Thus, it seems that the insula subserves negative affective states that bear on decision
making. In light of this, it is plausible that increased
insula activity would be associated with difficult personal moral judgment specifically, but not with personal
moral judgment in general. In response to difficult personal moral dilemmas, people find themselves entertaining, and in some cases endorsing, actions that would
otherwise be considered morally repugnant. For example, in the crying baby case, one is tempted to say that
it is acceptable to smother the baby in order to save
the lives of the other people who are hiding. The consideration of such repugnant acts in the context of difficult
moral dilemmas may elicit greater insula activity than
the consideration of similar acts in the context of easy
personal moral dilemmas, such as the infanticide case,
in which judgment is unanimous and swift and in which
there appears to be little temptation to make a controversial judgment.
We note that dilemmas were classified as difficult
(high-RT) or easy (low-RT) on a subject-by-subject, pertrial basis. Thus, a dilemma that was easy for one person
could be difficult for another. Nevertheless, the RT results for each dilemma were fairly consistent across
individuals, allowing us to refer to certain dilemmas as
difficult or easy. The footbridge and infanticide dilemmas tended to be easy, while the crying baby dilemma tended to be difficult. The trolley dilemma is
impersonal and is therefore not involved in the present
analysis (see Figure 1).
Several alternative explanations concerning the present analysis also deserve attention. First, the comparison between difficult and easy personal moral judgments is complicated by a potential confound of time on
task: more difficult trials are defined as those associated
with longer RT. However, longer RT could also reflect the
prolonged engagement of other, nonspecific processes,
such as visual processing and/or motor responding. We
address this concern in our discussion of analysis 2
below.
Similarly, our interpretation draws on the conflict monitoring hypothesis of ACC function (Botvinick et al.,
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are proposed but in which the benefits sought are relatively small compared to those available in the difficult
cases. Thus, it is natural to suppose that a utilitarian,
cost-benefit analysis is most often the basis for judging
personal moral violations to be appropriate in the difficult cases.
Reaching an overt judgment on utilitarian grounds
has two processing requirements. First, the abstract
reasoning that constitutes a utilitarian analysis must be
conducted. Second, cognitive control must be engaged
to support successful competition of the behavior favored by the outcome of that analysis against any incompatible behavioral pressures (e.g., an emotional response favoring the opposite behavior). Thus, we might
expect to see neural activity associated with both of
these demands in the results of analysis 1. That is, difficult personal moral dilemmas, as compared to easy
ones, will involve both utilitarian reasoning and (in many
cases) the application of cognitive control in favoring
the utilitarian response over its competitors. However,
the results of analysis 2 are expected to be more restrictive since they examined only difficult dilemmas, comparing activity associated with utilitarian versus nonutilitarian responses. Since difficult dilemmas were likely to
have engaged abstract reasoning, irrespective of behavioral response (as evidenced by similar RTs for both
types of trial), areas of activity associated with abstract
reasoning are likely to have been subtracted out by
analysis 2. Thus, voxels showing significantly greater
activity associated with a utilitarian response reflect primarily the successful engagement of cognitive control
in support of that response. In summary, analysis 1 identified areas within DLPFC associated with the demands
for abstract reasoning as well as cognitive control, while
analysis 2 identified a subset of these regions that we
presume was associated more specifically with the execution of control. The latter finding is consistent with
other findings suggesting that the DLPFC (bilateral BA
46) plays an important role in the regulation of potentially
counterproductive emotions in the context of social decision making (Sanfey et al., 2003), in the context of the
placebo effect (Wager et al., 2004), and in the evaluation
of tradeoffs between future and immediate rewards (McClure et al., 2004). Our finding that different areas of
PFC seem to have been differentially sensitive to the
engagement of reasoning and control is intriguing, suggesting that the neural mechanisms subserving these
aspects of cognitive processing may be at least partially dissociable.
The same effect was observed bilaterally in the inferior
parietal lobes (BA 40), consistent with the common finding of activity in these areas in tasks engaging cognitive
control (Wager and Smith, 2003). This effect was also
observed in the posterior cingulate region (BA 23/31)
that, as described above, exhibited increased activity for
difficult personal moral dilemmas as well as increased
activity for impersonal, as compared to personal, moral
judgment. The activity in this region, which is more often
associated with emotion (Maddock, 1999), mirrors that
of the characteristically cognitive brain regions in the
DLPFC and the inferior parietal lobes. Finally, in the wholebrain version of this analysis, this effect (utilitarian nonutilitarian) was observed in three regions within the temporal lobes. An examination of the time courses of activity
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motivational force of their own, but that can be contingently connected to affective/emotional states that do
have such force, thus producing behavior that is both
flexible and goal directed. According to this view, the
emotion/cognition distinction is real, but it is a matter
of degree and, at the present time, not very well understood. It is within a framework of this sort that we retain
and utilize the emotion/cognition distinction while recognizing that this distinction is far from clear cut.
Broader Implications
For two centuries, Western moral philosophy has been
defined largely by a tension between two opposing viewpoints. Utilitarians (or, more broadly, consequentialists)
such as John Stuart Mill (Mill, 1998) argue that morality
is, or ought to be, a matter of promoting the greater
good, while deontologists such as Immanuel Kant
(Kant, 1959) argue that certain moral lines ought not be
crossed, that certain rights or duties must be respected,
regardless of the greater good that might otherwise be
achieved. Moral dilemmas of the sort employed here
boil this philosophical tension down to its essentials and
may help us understand its persistence. We propose
that the tension between the utilitarian and deontological perspectives in moral philosophy reflects a more
fundamental tension arising from the structure of the
human brain. The social-emotional responses that weve
inherited from our primate ancestors (due, presumably,
to some adaptive advantage they conferred), shaped
and refined by culture bound experience, undergird the
absolute prohibitions that are central to deontology. In
contrast, the moral calculus that defines utilitarianism
is made possible by more recently evolved structures
in the frontal lobes that support abstract thinking and
high-level cognitive control. We have adduced some
support for this hypothesis, albeit using a limited set
of testing materials. First, we have seen evidence of
increased social-emotional processing in cases in which
deontological intuitions are prominent. Second, we have
seen greater activity in brain regions associated with
cognitive control when utilitarian judgments prevail.
These brain regions house some of our species most
recently evolved neural features (Allman et al., 2002) and
associated cognitive abilities.
We emphasize that this cognitive account of the Kant
versus Mill problem in ethics is speculative. Should this
account prove correct, however, it will have the ironic
implication that the Kantian, rationalist approach to
moral philosophy is, psychologically speaking, grounded
not in principles of pure practical reason, but in a set of
emotional responses that are subsequently rationalized
(Haidt, 2001). Whether this psychological thesis has any
normative implications is a complicated matter that we
leave for treatment elsewhere (Greene, 2003; Greene
and Cohen, 2004).
Experimental Procedures
Participants
Our participants were 41 healthy adult undergraduates (24 males,
17 females). All participants spoke native English, were right handed,
and were screened for a history of psychiatric and neurological
problems. All experimental procedures complied with the guidelines
of Princeton Universitys Internal Review Panel. Written informed
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